Season 6. Episode 5. Pedaling Paradise.

September 30, 2026. Supetar to Bol (Island of Brac), Croatia. 31 miles. 3,171’ climbing. 

Here are a few parting images of Split before heading to Brac, the first of our three Dalmatian Island stops. 

Awesome to ride beside and beneath an ancient Roman aqueduct  originally built around 4th Century to provide fresh water to Diocletian’s Palace. So funny to think this was leading technology (in water management) in its time.

Clever sign as we rode past the airport.

The worst food delivery job for a bike messenger -  inside the walls of the palace.

The Dalmatian Islands are described online as “a stunning, sun-drenched archipelago of over 1,000 islands and islets stretching along Croatia's Adriatic coast, primarily known for crystal-clear waters, historic Venetian-era towns, and Mediterranean charm.”  

We agree they are that and more! As far as sun drenched, we went a period of 5 days without seeing a single cloud in the sky. 

We ferried from Split to Supetar on the island of Brac, the largest of the Dalmatian Islands. It was the site of the stone quarries that slaves hauled stone from to build the palace.

Riding on the east side of the island to begin, and heading south, we were struck by the Dinarican Alps on the mainland, when we looked east.

We learned the normally highly reliable cycling route mapping app, RWGPS (Ride with GPS) cannot always be trusted. I’m ok riding off road but despite having a gravel bike now, Heather feels unsafe and would rather walk down.

It’s an island full of olive trees and vineyards. 


Postira is gearing up for the 9th World Olive Picking Championship October 8-11.  Teams from around world engage in fierce hand picking harvest competition. Would have been something to see!

The Sculpting Academy in Pucisca is the only stone masonry school in Croatia and with students from around the world.

It is a working school, (currently 58 students including one from California) and one of the only places to witness master carvers at work. Because it was a local festival day (Feast of Saint Jerome), students were not there to observe. However, the teacher showed us around briefly and explained the process. I was surprised by how much time goes into a project in advance - from Idea to drawing to maybe a model before actually starting to chisel. 


The student workstations. It’s easy to forget that every final sculpture started as a a big block.


One of our last glances east as we finished climbing over the mountainous ridge to the west side.

Brac has the highest peak of the islands. 

As we started descending, we both were stunned at how beautiful it was. Just when we think it’s our best view, something equal or better appears.

In March we biked in Mallorca, Spain and I was blown away and refer to it as cycling Mecca. Here I think we discovered cycling paradise. I don’t know how we could paint a better cycling picture.

It's so beautiful. You don't want to cycle fast. I deliberately slowed down to really soak it all in.

Croatia’s supposedly most famous beach, Zlatni Rat (or Golden Horn Beach) in Bol. The iconic beach juts out in a triangle shape and its shape shifts with the tides & wind.

It’s so windy it’s an ideal place for kite surfing. I took a lesson and was surprised how quickly I was able to jump high on turns.

Just kidding on the lesson and me jumping. That was my stunt double with similar haircut :) 

Heather and I hung out and watched the kite surfers and stunning sunset that was perfectly setting into the sea. 

What an incredible end to an incredible day to end an incredible first week.


*          *          *

We ride to raise funds for the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation. They are dedicated to curing spinal cord injury and improving the quality of life of those impacted by paralysis. Thank you to so many of you who have already generously donated an amazing  total over $19,000! If you’ve not yet had a chance to support the Reeve Foundation, please consider making a gift at Heather & Mark Ride for Reeve.


© Copyright Mark Segal 2026.

Comments

  1. Miriam CherniakOctober 7, 2026 at 2:05 PM

    Sigh - a huge sigh of envy. And of course you probably had a great gelatto or pastry at the end of the day!!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Welcome Back for Season 6! Adriatic Odyssey.

Image
Welcome to new readers and welcome back to loyal readers of the Shifting Gears blog! As we say…here we go again. On September 24th, Heather & I start cycling from Trieste, Italy through Croatia, Montenegro, Albania and back to Italy, ending in Puglia. This ride is over 1,000 miles, climb 57,000 feet (that’s 2 Mount Everests of climbing!) and should take 4 weeks. Here is a visual – starting in Trieste Italy, which is a 2-hour drive from Venice airport where we are flying. Our final stop is Bari, on the East Coast of Italy, on the Adriatic. The map image is fairly accurate but AI has it’s limits so it misses a small slice of Slovenia that touches the Adriatic for about 25 miles, south of Trieste and before Croatia begins. You can see the full details of our planned itinerary in the chart at the bottom of this blog. We’ll ride self-supported – just two of us, carrying 25+ pounds each in our panniers (saddlebags) on our bikes, with no support van! Why call it an Odyssey? About 30 years...
Read more

Season 6. Episode 1. The Goldschmieds.

Image
September 23, 2026. Land in Venice, shuttle to Trieste.  The moment we landed, and I had cell service, I checked the location of my air tags. The tag in my pannier showed it was with me - that made sense as our panniers were in the plane cabin as carry on bags. But my air tag on my bike showed it was still in Newark airport back home. Yikes. I figured it needed time “to register” but 15 minutes later as I stood in the passport line, it still showed Newark and Heather’s tag showed Venice. Yikes again.  This past May, when flying home from abroad with our bikes, the bikes did not make the connecting flight and we only got them three days later. That experience has weighed on my mind and it’s one of the reasons we strive to only fly direct on our outbound flight. It’s one of the reasons we started this adventure where we did.  When speaking with Lenny (friend who we dedicate ride in his honor) last week, I said I feel a lot of pressure of trip planning on my shoulders, but o...
Read more

Season 6. Episode 2. Debut of the Guest Walker

Image
September 24, 2026. Trieste, Italy to Motovun, Croatia. 58 miles. 3,401’ climbing.  Although the first 10 miles getting out of Trieste were nothing special, and busy city traffic type riding, the rest of the day was (as planned) a series of small stops each interesting. We made a quick stop in Muggia (the last Italian town in Istria) where we visited Piazza Guglielmo Marconi. The squares is named in tribute to Marconi who I knew developed the first commercial wireless communications. Though he’s not a native of this region, he’s honored as a source of national pride.  I wondered if not for Marconi, would we have an iPhone for me to type this blog and email it?  We soon entered a sliver of Slovenia. The country only has 29 miles of coastline on the Adriatic, in the northern Gulf of Trieste.  The old border station which was once a hive of activity was more like a ghost town building. Since 2006 Slovenia joined the Schengen area of Europe, allowing free passage without...
Read more